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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29019249">Unyielding</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/'>Anonymous</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Prodigal Son (TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>College Malcolm, Confessions, M/M, eventual parent/child incest</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 13:40:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,033</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29019249</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Malcolm had thought that college would be different, that he might be able to blend in and avoid the bullying and isolation that plagued him in grade school. He thought wrong. Full of anger and frustration, he goes to see the source of his pain.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Malcolm Bright/Martin Whitly</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Anonymous</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Unyielding</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“My boy!” Martin chirped, turning to regard the college sweater-clad young man entering the outer sanctum of his cell. But his face fell quickly, the wide smile shrinking, forehead contracting in concern as his son came closer.</p><p>“Malcolm what happened?” His eyes roamed over his boy’s face, snagging on the black eye and split lip.</p><p>“You’ll need to step back Malcolm, while I chain his hands and connect them to his waist.” Mr. David moved to do just that for this impromptu visit to proceed, but Malcolm’s hand gently stopped him. </p><p>“Just leave him.”</p><p>“Uncuffed?”</p><p>“He’s still chained to the wall right?”</p><p>“Well, yes. But he’s still too dangerous...”</p><p>“Leave him,” Malcolm said a touch too forcefully. His voice wobbled and tears were already gathering at his eyes. Surely both Mr. David and Martin could sense that the nineteen year old was on the edge of a breakdown.</p><p>Mr. David found himself conflicted, as he was both on Martin’s and Jessica’s payroll, but when Malcolm shoved a wad of cash into his hand and urged him to unlock the cage to let him inside, he did just that. Malcolm also whispered to him that he ought to take a half hour walk and the man nodded.</p><p>Part of Martin was proud of his boy’s bravery and bribery, and grateful for the luxury of access to his hands during a visit, but there were more pressing matters to focus on. </p><p>“What on earth happened to your face?” Martin took a step forward, and Malcolm took a step back. </p><p>Mr. David had sealed him inside the cage with the beast and the bars met his back. The sound of the outer cell doors closing reverberated with finality.</p><p>“What happened to me? The same thing that’s been happening for years,” his voice split on “years,” and embarrassment rolled through him. He was a college student, but he still felt like a child and far too old to have his voice be cracking like a kid on the dawn of puberty. He had come here to unfurl his fury, to unleash his anger in his father’s direction, and yet...upon seeing him...he felt like disintegrating into a puddle of youthful vulnerability.</p><p>It was the same way when, as a child, he had accidentally cut himself carving pumpkins. The cut was deep and it bled and bled and bled. He had resolved to be brave, to go to his father and hold out his hand without shaking or theatrics. And yet, the moment he had walked up to the surgeon, tears began cascading down his face. It was like a dam breaking and once it broke, the water couldn’t be put back inside.</p><p>“Sweetheart,” Martin said too sweetly, lifting a hand to cup Malcolm’s face and he violently swatted it away. </p><p>“I thought that changing my name...that going to college...becoming anonymous on a large campus would somehow…” his lower lip shook and Martin was so overwhelmed with how beautiful his boy looked on the edge of okayness. </p><p>“I know that the name change didn’t help in grade school…”</p><p>“No, it didn’t,” Malcolm’s hand shook as he recalled those three hellish days, locked away in the closet like a discarded broom. That was the start of the more severe presentation of his hand tremor. That was the first time he had ever hallucinated Martin…</p><p>He never told the killer, but during those long days and nights, he had full conversations with his father. It was a loosening of his sanity that he allowed in order to survive, and survive he had. But that closet...it found him in his nightmares, it mingled with the other horrors that already lived in his head. </p><p>“How did they find out who you are?”</p><p>Malcolm swallowed but had no spit. </p><p>Even before he changed his name, he wondered...would people continue to know anyway? Despite his last name being different, would they be able to see the madness that he sometimes felt lurking under his flesh like earthworms wriggling in the dirt? Would people look at him and see Martin regardless of his moniker? </p><p>This time it was a nosy student journalist. What would it be next?</p><p>“It doesn’t matter.”</p><p>“It matters to me…” Martin shifted and sighed. “And if it doesn’t matter, then why are you here?”<br/>
</p><p>He didn’t know why he still came.</p><p>His therapist had asked why he still visited his father and he couldn’t come up with an adequate answer. Each time he got in a car headed to Claremont, he was filled with dread and anticipation. The building would rise up before him in the windshield like a great beast. It’s maw open and waiting, the hallway intestines stretching out, digesting him until he would arrive at Martin. </p><p>If he had any sense left, he wouldn’t be here today. It was a spur of the moment, poorly formed idea, but one borne entirely of emotion. He had nothing but pure frustration rolling between his rib cage and no clue of what to do with it, nowhere to put it, it was drowning him. So he thought he might spew it at his father. </p><p>He hadn’t even gone home yet. He just had a driver take him straight from Cambridge to New York City - to Claremont. For the nearly four hour trip he just sat and stewed, feeding the festering feelings of helplessness.</p><p>“Have you told your mother about what’s going on at Harvard?” </p><p>He shook his head left and right. “No.”</p><p>He was tired of having the same conversations with mother. She would cup his face and examine his black eye and split lip and threaten to do what? Storm Harvard? This wasn’t his prep school anymore and he was an adult. It was too painful to sit on their ornate living room sofa and bear the brokenhearted expression that would paint her face. </p><p>“I...I don’t know what to do anymore…”</p><p>“You fight back,” Martin strained forward, pulling the line tight, like a fish caught on a hook. “You’re my son.”</p><p>“No I’m not!” Malcolm’s whole body shook, and tears carved rivers down his cheeks. He watched the words land like a physical blow and felt an overwhelming urge to deliver an actual hit. “You’ve brought me nothing…nothing but pain,” his words twisted and snagged like barbed wire, pulling open the monster’s flesh. </p><p>“Don’t say that,” Martin came into his space. His hands were free. The potential for danger was infinite, but Malcolm felt no fear. “I’m your father. I made you.” </p><p>“I hate you!” Malcolm roared, shoving Martin as hard as he possibly could. </p><p>Martin was caught off guard but he didn’t go far. Malcolm was tall, but scrawny. </p><p>“You don’t mean that.”</p><p>“I do, I hate… I hate you,” Malcolm kept pushing, and started hitting his chest in a flurry of fists. It was like beating his hands against a firm mattress. No damage was being done to Martin, nor could it ever. There could be no hurting a man who only cared for himself. </p><p>“Malcolm...Malcolm, stop,” Martin grabbed his bony wrists and felt the tremor ricocheting up Malcolm’s right hand. </p><p>He was taking deep pulling breaths and his cheeks were splotched red. His eyes were pink with agitation from crying and his face was wet. As he remained held in suspension by his father’s grip, he felt so frail and vulnerable and...cheated. </p><p>How dare Martin Whitly pass down to him this terrifying and murderous legacy and yet create a son who was so wholly breakable? Pliable. Lithe and frantic like a bird caught in a cage. </p><p>He hated that he was naive enough to think that his life would change for the better at college. That he could somehow escape the inescapable. The running from himself, from his father, from the blood on his father’s hands, was exhausting. And that wasn’t even the whole of his secrets. There were depths much darker than the ones he acknowledged or alluded to. </p><p>Like the way his father’s fingers wrapped around his pulse points made him feel.</p><p>Secure.</p><p>Aroused.</p><p>He hiccuped a sob and it sounded so loud and foreign in the small space. What he ought to have done was rip his wrists away, to turn towards the bars and use them as a surface to slide down to the floor and cry. But Martin was right there with his familiar scent and worried eyes and large arms that could wrap him up. So Malcolm drooped forward, his head going to Martin’s shoulder. </p><p>Martin let go of his wrists and embraced him.  </p><p>He wanted to kill anyone and everyone who had ever bullied his boy, but he hoped that...if anything... Malcolm would be stronger for it. He hoped it would bring out his darker side, not threaten to break him. </p><p>There was nothing more Martin could do but inwardly rage at whoever hurt his son... all the while being grateful that they had, because the result was his hands freed and his boy delivered into his waiting arms.</p><p>“Shhh,” he cooed. “It’s alright. It’s going to be alright,” he ran a hand through Malcolm’s hair and felt his son nuzzle his head into his neck. </p><p>But it wasn’t alright and it never would be. </p><p>Malcolm knew, had known from the moment he had his father arrested, that he was irreparably damaged. Broken. And the fact that he came to his father first, the fact that he found solace in him, only spoke to just how broken he was.</p><p>Martin’s beard scratched against Malcolm’s smooth face as he pulled back and tried to steady his breathing. </p><p>“I’m not okay,” Malcolm whispered in the small space between them. Martin’s face was so close that he could smell his aftershave, see every flek of green in his blue eyes, hear the soft whoosh of his breathing. </p><p>He could not reconcile the fact that he simultaneously wanted to free himself of his father forever but also get infinitely closer. </p><p>“I want…” he started, but the words fell away, floating off into the surrounding air like the flecks of dust already adrift there. His hands had moved from clinging to the back of Martin’s shirt to resting on his chest. It was the closest he’d been to his father since they broke their hug when he was just eleven. And ever since that moment, he had been positively desperate to get that close again. Closer. He wanted him inside.</p><p>“What Malcolm?” Martin prodded, his hand again going to Malcolm’s face. He swiped away his tears and let his thumb brush over the flesh where the zygomatic and maxilla bones met...right where his black eye was. “Tell me…”</p><p>“I...I want…” he tried again and again he failed.</p><p>Martin pressed his thumb into that space below Malcolm’s eye, right into the bruise. He expected Malcolm to suck in a breath and make a pained noise. Instead, Malcolm’s mouth fell open and a needy sound, a moan, came out. </p><p>Martin’s neurons caught fire and realization came pouring over him like a splash of cold water over his head. </p><p>“Oh...oh my dear boy,” he moved his hand down and slid his thumb across the broken flesh of Malcolm’s plush lip. “Oh, I know what you want. I know what you need.” </p><p>“But I can’t, I shouldn’t…I shouldn’t want the things I do.” He screwed his eyes shut and let his head fall forward. Shame, familiar and thick, clogged his throat and rushed with the blood that filled his cock.<br/>
</p><p>“I...I hate you,” he whispered, all the vitriol had vanished from the words, leaving them hollow and powerless. If anything it was a plea to convince himself, a last ditch effort to remind himself that, yes, at times, he did hate his father. Most of all, he hated him for the fact that he still loved him, and more than that - for the ways he wanted to express those feelings. </p><p>“I never wanted this,” he dug his fingers into Martin’s shirtfront. </p><p>“Oh sweetheart,” Martin tilted his head and brought his face closer to Malcolm’s. “I think you mean that you’ve never wanted this more.”</p>
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